1926 THE LINE BOOK RHL Richard Henry Little Chicago Tribune POPULAR EDITION BOX

The Line Book is a compilation of editorial columns in the Chicago Tribune written originally by Bert Leston Taylor (B.L.T.) in 1901. Richard Henry Little (R.H.L.) took over the column after Taylor’s death, and the Chicago Tribune began producing an annual “book” of excerpts in 1924. These were popular and collectible in their time, so many homes had these in their book collections. Graphic artist and illustrator Boris Riedel was born in Austria but was primarily active in the United States. Little is found on the seemingly prolific illustrator, though it is known that he worked for the Chicagoan, illustrating its first cover in 1926 as well as several subsequent covers and vignettes, and also acting as the magazine’s first art editor. He illustrated several children’s books we well as a book of poetry by Marie Hecht and a novel by J.V. Nicholson, and was employed by WGN Radio out of Chicago to illustrate their publication, The Linebook. At some point he lived in Hollywood where he worked as a poster designer and portraitist to the stars.Some of Riedel’s silkscreen work would today fall under the category of fine art rather than illustrative, but at the height of his career silkscreen was still primarily considered commercial, and had not yet been formally recognized by the art world as a stand-alone fine art medium.